RAMANUJA

Rāmānuja, a South Indian Brahman theologian and philosopher, was the single most influential thinkerof devotional Hinduism.Information on the life of Rāmānuja consists only of the accounts given in the legendary biographies about him, in which a pious imagination has embroidered historical details. According to tradition, he was born in southern India, in what is now Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras) state. He became a temple priest at the Varadarāja temple at Kāñcī, where he began to expound the doctrine that the goal of those who aspire to final release from transmigration is not the impersonal Brahman but rather Brahman as identified with the personal god Vishnu.

Like many Hindu thinkers, he made an extended pilgrimage, circumambulating India from Rāmeswaram (part of Adams Bridge), along the west coast to Badrīnāth, the source of the holy river Ganges, and returning along the east coast. He returned after 20 years to Śrīran.gam, where he organized the temple worship, and, reputedly, he founded 74 centres to disseminate his doctrine. After a life of 120 years, according to the tradition, he passed away in 1137. 

PHILOSOPHY AND INFLUENCE 

Rāmānuja’s chief contribution to philosophy was his emphasis that discursive thought is necessary in man’s search for the ultimate verities, that the phenomenal world is real and provides real knowledge, and that the exigencies of daily life are not detrimental or even contrary to the life of the spirit. In this emphasis he is the antithesis of Śan.kara, of whom he was sharply critical and whose interpretation of the scriptures he disputed. Like other adherents of the Vedānta system, Rāmānuja accepted that any Vedānta system must base itself on the three “points of departure,” namely, the Upanis.ads, the Brahma-sūtras (brief exposition of the major tenets of the Upanis.ads), and the Bhagavadgītā, the colloquy of the god Kr.s.n.a and his friend Arjuna. 

He wrote no commentary on any single Upanis.ad but explained in detail the method of understanding the Upanis.ads in his first major work, the Vedārtha-sam.graha (“Summary of the Meaning of the Veda”). Much of this was incorporated in his commentary on the Brahma-sūtras, the Śrī-bhā.sya, which presents his fully developed views. His commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, the Bhagavadgītā-bhā.sya, dates from a later age.Although Rāmānuja’s contribution to Vedānta thought was highly significant, his influence on the course of Hinduism as a religion has been even greater. By allowing the urge for devotional worship (bhakti) into his doctrine of salvation, he aligned the popular religion with the pursuits of philosophy and gave bhakti an intellectual basis. 

Ever since, bhakti has remained the major force in the religions of Hinduism. His emphasis on the necessity of religious worship as a means of salvation continued in a more systematic context the devotional effusions of the Āl.vārs, the 7th–10th century poet-mystics of southern India, whose verse became incorporated into temple worship. This bhakti devotionalism, guided by Rāmānuja, made its way into northern India, where its influence on religious thought and practice has been profound.Rāmānuja’s world view accepts the ontological reality of three distinct orders: matter, soul, and God. Like Śan.kara and earlier Vedānta, he admits that there is nonduality (advaita), an ultimate identity of the three orders, but this nonduality for him is asserted of God, who is modified (viśis..ta) by the orders of matter and soul; hence his doctrine is known as Viśis.t.ādvaita (“modified non­ duality”) as opposed to the unqualified nonduality of Śan.kara.

Central to his organic conception of the universe is the analogy of body and soul: just as the body modifies the soul, has no separate existence from it, and yet is different from it, just so the orders of matter and soul constitute God’s “body,” modifying it, yet having no separate existence from it. The goal of the human soul, therefore, is to serve God just as the body serves the soul. Anything different from God is but a śes.a of him, a spilling from the plenitude of his being. All the phenomenal world is a manifestation of the glory of God (vibhūti), and to detract from its reality is to detract from his glory.Rāmānuja transformed the practice of ritual action into the practice of divine worship and the way of meditation into a continuous loving pondering of God’s qualities; both, in turn, a subservient to bhakti, the fully realized devotion that finds God. 

Thus, release is not merely a shedding of the bonds of transmigration but a positive quest for the contemplation of God, who is pictured as enthroned in his heaven, called Vaikun.t.ha, with his con-sort and attendants.